The Growing Impact Of Employee-Owned Devices

By Nicholas Arvanitis, principal consultant for security, Dimension Data, www.dimensiondata.com

The trend of BYOD (bring your own device) presents security risks that need to be addressed.

The popularity of mobile devices has changed the way many enterprise users deploy technology. Today, in any public setting one need only look around to glimpse people engrossed in their smartphones. Accelerating this trend is the resurgence of tablet computing, primarily driven by Apple’s iPad, which has transformed traditional tablet computing and brought it to the mainstream.

As a result, consumers are bringing these technologies to work. This trend has caused IT to experience a loss of control, making many security and risk professionals want to reach for antacids. Questions swirl around support and management of these devices, as well as risk and security implications, while adoption of these mobile devices continues at full steam. This spectrum of unmanaged endpoint devices of various flavors presents unique challenges that require a substantial mind-shift.

Forrester states that well over half of enterprises now allow personally owned smartphones to access company resources. This number is bound to grow. Here are some key considerations and recommendations for organizations to securely integrate employees’ personal mobile devices into the workplace.